


once more, once more

by dhabitude



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Multi, Multiverse, Mutual Pining, Tea, and tatched on a sentence to the end to clear it all up, but i got very bored, crisps and cups of tea, everyone is English, except from the Birds and the arrival of New People, except i rather like bacon flavoured crisps, except its barely mentioned bebcause this was supposed to be a lot longer, i dont know much about the premier league but i have strong opinions on crisps and tea apparently, mild hoarding i suppose, steve is a snob but he won't admit it and bucky talks a little bit like a chav, there's next to no plot, they live in a cottage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:22:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26310001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dhabitude/pseuds/dhabitude
Summary: Bucky gets visited by Steve somewhere in England and they drink a lot of tea. Also, a pair of teenagers show up on their doorstep.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers
Kudos: 2





	once more, once more

The cottage was old and the roof was sagging and needed to be re-thatched and Steve was ashamed to say that his nose had scrunched up at the damp smell that clung to the walls.

“Snob.” Bucky said, not taking his shoes off and stepping into the hall. Very wise of him, Steve thought, eyeing the grey rug beneath his feet with distaste.

“Its not 1937 anymore,” Steve said, “I don’t see why we should have to live like it is.”

Bucky hummed at him, eyebrows raised before slipping into the kitchen. The house had been nice when they bought it, although Steve couldn’t remember when that was. They’d given a couple hundred thousand pounds to Tony and asked to buy them something quiet, and Tony had put a couple million of his own in to buy them Honeysuckle Cottage, somewhere in the south of England.

It had been a spring day when they’d moved in, early May and the garden was sprouting daisies and green grass. The house had been warm and inviting, all stone accents and wooden floors and a wide kitchen and rattling pipes and Steve had fallen in love with it almost immediately and perhaps also a little desperately. He had wanted something that was his, without all the pressure of being Mr America.

Bucky had taken the biggest room with a view of the oak tree in the back garden and Steve had taken the smaller one with a view of sprawling fields and, off in the distance, their neighbour’s home. The house had since gone into disarray and Steve was often sleeping somewhere else. He was not a snob.

“Tea?” Bucky asked from the kitchen, already flicking the kettle on and moving a stack of paperwork from a seat so Steve could sit at the table.

Steve hummed a yes, casting an eye at the fireplace, black with soot. “So.” He said and then paused because what was there to say. Not much.

“So.” Bucky answered, his voice full of an accent Steve wasn’t used to. The kettle was boiling on the stove but Steve could see two automatics on the counter.

“You have three kettles.”

“Four, actually.” Bucky said and then opened his mouth as if to say something but stopped. “Erm, how’s Peggy?”

“Oh, um, she’s dead.” Steve blinked, hand fiddling with a broken mug with Queen Elizabeth painted onto it.

“Bugger that.” Bucky said and Steve laughed because who the fuck says that.

“Truly.” He said with a grin, stomach aching a little. It was better to not talk about things with Bucky and he knew that.The kettle was whistling.

“You want some crisps too?” Bucky asked, and pulled a multipack out of a cupboard and threw it at Steve, who realised that Bucky had only eaten the Bacon and the Beef flavours out of the pack rather quickly.  
”Um, I’d rather not.” Steve said with a grimace. He had the choice of Pickled Onion or Prawn Cocktail left and, frankly, he’d rather fight in another bloody war that eat any crisp flavour Bucky bought.

Bucky hummed again, eyes on the mug he was holding as he put it onto the wood table. Steve blinked as it sloshed over the sides, picking up a pack of unopened coasters. They were hand painted, an idyllic cottage painted onto the one on the top. The thin plastic wrapping covering them tore easily under Steve’s tooth.

“What kind of crisps do you lot eat then? Fucking, I don’t know, caviar?” Bucky faced away from Steve, preparing his own cuppa.

“Nobody eats bacon flavoured crisps, Buck.”

Bucky let out a bark of a laugh and Steve's hand twitched. "Big Pete down the pub does."  
"You cant call someone Big Pete, its terribly rude. Do you not read the news here or something? As well as not cleaning up after yourself." Steve frowned, sipping his tea and punctuating very hard on the word up. It tasted like shit, as all things Bucky ate did. He didn’t know if it was some twisted form of self-punishment or if Bucky's mother was a nitwit who had raised him on the worst possible diet of Typhoo tea and Bacon flavoured crisps and cheese and tomato sandwiches. "What tea brand is this?"  
"Lipton."

Good god, Steve thought, he's killing himself. "Excuse me?"

"Lipton." Bucky repeated, facing Steve now. He was leant up against the counter, arm tucked underneath his elbow, sipping on his tea.

"You drink Lipton tea." His voice was flat and his tea was forgotten on the cottage coaster.

Bucky rolled his eyes, mouth open to make fun of Steve or something, because that’s what he did best, after probably possibly having the worst taste Steve had ever seen. His doormat was green and he had a red door, for goodness' sake. The doorbell rang instead and Bucky put his cup down, opening a cupboard. "Got some Tetley in there somewhere, be back in a 'mo."

And so Steve went about the routine of getting the Tetley tea out -fucking green tea flavoured, good god- and dipping the bag into another mug, this one with Henry VIII on it.  
"Steve." Bucky was back from the door and Steve hummed at him.

"You do know that green tea is quite possibly the worst flavour there-"

"Steve, look at me." Rolling his eyes, Steve turned to Bucky.

"Hello. My name's Steve" A significantly younger Steve said, his voice posh and his hair slicked back.

"What the fuck." Steve said, looking at Bucky who nodded. He was sure they looked a right pair, jaws open and eyes bugging because holy fucking shit, Steve and Bucky were stood in the kitchen with Little Steve and Little Bucky, who looked terribly surly for a teenager.

"Goodness!" Little Steve said, voice clipped and the words all rounded and polished. "Don’t just stand there, offer us something to eat. I say, do you have any bacon crisps, I'm terribly fond of them."

Oh yeah, Steve remembered now. He had gotten Bucky hooked onto shit crisps about a year after they'd met. Bucky's mother hated them.

Little Steve and Little Bucky were sat on the red sofa in the living room, sipping on two cans of coke and eating Quavers. Steve had glowered at Bucky when he had gotten them out, who merely hummed and left a pack on the side. An apology. Steve hadn't touched it, had just squashed up against Bucky's side, who's hip was probably dug painfully into the counter, forgiven.

"So." Bucky said, voice shaky.  
"So." Steve answered, and he went red when his voice came out terribly high pitched and strangled.

"I'd forgotten your hair." Bucky said, softer now and Steve hummed, a low tone.

"Your ears were so big." Bucky hummed back at him, and Steve looked at his hands. They were white around another monarch's face, fingers obscuring the image. Steve wasn't sure he would be able to tell who anyone else was anyway, he'd dropped history back in year nine, taken art instead. Bucky had taken PE.

"Perhaps we should go talk to them." And Steve's voice was barely a whisper now. There was a pair of aliens sitting on Bucky's ugly red sofa drinking coke.

Bucky hummed again, sipping his tea. It made a loud slurping noise as it passed his lips and Steve gulped. "Maybe, yeah."

Neither of them moved until Little Bucky came stomping into the kitchen scowling. He was wearing a little blue button up that Steve thought would've been adorable if it wasn’t untucked and a part of their school uniform. His tie was knotted around his wrist and a smudge of dirt was by his left ear. "Maybe you should come and fucking talk to us." Little Bucky spat, eyes blazing. "Mum's making toad in the hole for tea and I don’t want her to give my serving to Luce."  
"Luce?" Bucky -the big one- asked. It was oddly silent, even with the window open. No birds.

Little Bucky's scowl deepened even further and he rolled his eyes, drawling, "Lucinda? Our sister?" He separated sister into it's three syllables and enunciated them as if he was speaking to a toddler. Steve thought he was a bit of a prick.

"Lucinda isn't my sister, mate, I don’t know what you're banging on about." Big Bucky said next to Steve, the sound vibrating into his shoulder.

"Oh." Steve mumbled. "They're not from here, Buck."

Bucky whirled on him, looking a little bit crazed, eyes wide and hair a little bit mussed. "No shit, Stevie! Did you just notice that or have you been fucking criticising my fucking crisp selection all this bloody time? If you haven't bloody noticed, you're sat on my bloody sofa!"

Steve blushed a little and pushed his nose higher up into the air. "Well," he began and god did he sound like a rich twat, "your crisp selection is rather poor, Buck. I'd imagine they created a pack of flavours that you just don’t eat and take down to you local food bank and hoped and prayed that someone would buy them."  
Bucky, Steve noticed with a little joy, looked like he was about to throttle someone and so he stepped over to Little Bucky, "Son, I believe you're from a different universe than us."

"Um, yeah." Little Bucky gave Steve a look that Steve knew meant, completely and utterly, that he was an idiot. "Stevo figured that out when he saw your ugly mugs. He's been nattering on about it for the past five minutes. Multiverse and all that bollocks."  
"Yes, all those bollocks." Steve sniffed. "How old are you?"  
"Fifteen, Steve's fourteen." Bucky grunted, motioning to the wall with his head. "So, you know, don’t start looking at us all weird and that like the other one did."  
"Other one?" Bucky squawked.

"He's in the car outside, the old fart." Little Bucky said and Big Bucky dashed out the kitchen rather too quickly for a man with a cuppa in his hands and Steve frowned as Little Bucky followed him. He should really ask some more questions.

The kitchen was cold and silent without the Buckies, but Steve could hear the other Steve breathing next door. The wooden table was stained with little circles and Steve cast a glowering look at it, spotting three packs of coasters in the pile of papers and rubbish and hair bands. It looked like Bucky had never thrown away anything in his life and Steve regretted moving out. The cottage seemed smaller than when he was here last time, but it was probably the mess Bucky had made that covered every surface and was stacked in boxes against most of the walls. It was like Bucky had suddenly thought he was going to die a horrible death and that no one would know who he was and so had bought out multiple shops to showcase his personality.

Steve spotted the fourth kettle, one that had to be boiled on the stove and bright red, on top of a tower of toasters in boxes by the door leading to the lounge just as the front door opened, Big Bucky rounding into the kitchen white as a sheet, Little Bucky on his heels, hands shoved into his pockets. A Steve that was older than Little Steve but younger than Big Steve brought up the rear, staring at the Buckies looking like he was about to burst into tears.

Oh, Steve thought. This Steve's Bucky was still dead and he was probably still reeling over the new century. "So." He said.

"So." Big Bucky said. Steve hummed just as Little Steve came into the kitchen.

"May I have another Coca Cola?" He asked, empty can and empty Quavers packet in hand.

"Um, its not actual coke." Steve said as Little Steve squeezed by him to the fridge. "Its knockoff."

"Well, obviously." Little Steve said, slamming the fridge shut and holding a can out to his Bucky. "But Mother says it's rude to mention things like that so I generally try not to. Terribly sorry if I've offended you."

"What the fuck." Bucky whispered and Steve thought it odd that there were no birds chirping. The birds usually chirped.

"Do you want a cup of tea?" Steve offered this new Steve who nodded.

"There's some Yorkshire Tea in the fridge, I think." Bucky offered and Steve hummed angrily.

"That sounds nice, thanks." The new Steve said, accent decidedly not posh. Bucky made a noise that sounded ever so like a cat crying and Steve turned around to put the kettle on the stove, wondering whether he had drunk cider the night before and was having a weird dream.

And so Steve pulled the Yorkshire Tea out the cupboard and went about the routine of making a cup of tea. He wakes up in the morning in a cottage with no sagging roof, and its all clean and he doesn't have to wear his shoes inside but there are no Buckies or extra Steves. He yearns a little and he goes to have a cup of tea. Lipton, because he is trying to kill himself. 

**Author's Note:**

> bacon crisps are actually very good and im quite bad at describing rooms and there is a bit too much chatter in this chapter for my liking, apologies!


End file.
